Stranger than Fiction aka Fluffy
by Hi.mi.tsu.2
Summary: Possible-future fic. Neji wonders how his life got to be stranger than fiction. Neji, Hinata, and Naruto OT3.
1. Prologue

Life, Hyuuga Neji thought dispassionately as he watched a demon's host tickle his giggle-stricken wife, was stranger than he was accustomed to imagining.

The demon's host reached over and grabbed a fistful of Neji's long hair, and renewed his tickle-assault with better armaments.

"Some of us _are_ trying to sleep, you know," Neji commented. His wife immediately clamped both hands over her mouth. The gesture hurt, a little, uncomfortably, in ways he didn't have words for. So instead of struggling for the words, he pulled his hair free of the demon's grasp and bent that shaggy blonde head toward his wife's unprotected and tickle-prone throat, and he said, "Besides, you're fluffier anyway."

"I am _not_ fluffy!" came the predictable howl of protest.

Neji rolled his eyes -- not that anyone but another Hyuuga could tell -- and pulled the blankets up to his chin.

"I'm _not fluffy!_ I'm fierce and intimidating and -- and -- and -- stop smirking, you bastard, I'm -- hey, back me up here: am I fluffy?"

"...um... just a little..."

...Neji had never seen any demon-possessed terror of the countryside look so devastated at a simple observation of fluffiness before. Of course, he wasn't familiar with all that many demon-possessed terrors of the countryside, since the sum total equalled two. But the other one certainly wouldn't have looked so miserable at the thought of being called fluffy. Which was only natural, since the other one would never have been called fluffy in the first place, for fear of grievous bodily harm likely involving the removal of any tongue responsible for applying the word...

All in all, Neji thought, life was certainly stranger than he was accustomed to imagining. But on the whole, it had turned out much better than he'd feared.


	2. Chapter 1

Neji had always known that Hinata loved Naruto. He'd certainly known long before _Naruto_ did.

...Of course, most people knew most things long before Naruto did. But in this particular case, it had been... vexing.

He'd been one of the ANBU stationed in the council chambers when the council members took advantage of the Godaime Hokage's absence on a visit of state. With Tsunade gone, there was no one to object when they gathered all the female ninja of childbearing age and explained certain facts to them.

They hadn't technically violated the ban. They'd never said _why_ the proclamation was in place. They simply announced that if any woman gave birth to a blonde-haired, blue-eyed child with whisker marks, the consequenses for the mother would be severe, involving imprisonment at the mildest; and no one on the council would speak for the safety of the child when the news reached the villagers.

All the women in the room were young enough to have seen how Naruto was treated. Some of them were old enough to approve. Hinata's father, standing in the arch of the council, avoided her eyes.

Hinata had come home shaking, and actually _raged_ at her father. She was informed that while Uzumaki Naruto might not be a bad _person_, it was the rest of _what_ he was that made any thought of his wedding or breeding with any woman unimaginable and unconscionable. That went twice over for the heiress of the Hyuuga clan. Who was apparently in need of reminding that only outstanding candidates with impeccable and well-documented genetic heritage and noteworthy bloodline traits were ever allowed to marry into the Hyuuga line, and the Hyuuga heir was never permitted to marry one of the out-of-bloodline candidates in any case.

When her engagement to Neji was proclaimed, she looked stunned. About as stunned as he'd felt, actually, though he would never have let the expression show.

Naruto, the gallant moron, had actually tried to comfort her when she burst into tears over a bowl of ramen for dinner. Sakura, whose once-trim figure had begun to round out with her pregnancy, chased the men off and took Hinata to her home and let her cry. Neji kept Naruto away from Sakura's house by sheer force. And he let Naruto's furious and bewildered ranting flow in one ear and out the other, not even bothering to respond. Naruto accused Neji of making her cry. Neji didn't even blink.

What was there to say? That Neji's arranged-marriage fiancee-and-cousin was crying into her ramen because she loved Naruto instead, except for the fact that they'd both have to become missing-nin to love each other, Naruto as a missing nin would be hunted down and killed like an animal gone rabid, and any children would likely be killed at birth?

In a way, "you made her cry, you bastard" was an accurate enough shorthand for the rest of the explanation. And there was nothing Neji could do about any of it, so he let the accusation stand. He'd made her cry because he couldn't find a way to keep her from crying; he supposed he deserved what he got.

It had been expected for the best man and maid of honor to be Hyuuga. In the only gesture of rebellion he was allowed, Neji named Lee his best man; emboldened by the gesture, Hinata named Sakura as her maid of honor, since Lee would be there anyway. And once the two of them were invited, particularly given Lee's (ahem) vocal and effusive nature, then of course Gai was invited, and once Gai was invited, half of Konoha was invited. So rather than being a polite and restrained and matter-of-course Hyuuga ceremony to be held simply to make an arrangement official, suddenly there was an actual wedding being planned. To be more precise, there was an after-wedding celebration being planned.

Sakura was enormous with her child by the wedding, due at any moment; in fact, she went into labor the day afterwards, so conveniently timed that Neji suspected her medical training of having a hand in the fact that the child's birth waited precisely that long. At the wedding itself, Lee was agonizingly torn between Duty As Best Man and Duty To Heavily Pregnant Wife. By the time the reception started, an amused-and-exasperated Sakura ended up slipping a tranquilizer out of her medical kit and into the cup Lee used to make the toast. She spent the evening sitting with her feet propped up in Naruto's lap and babysitting her loopily poetry-spouting husband whose knees somehow didn't quite work the way they were expected to.

Someone had tried to order Naruto away from Sakura, under the theory that exposure to the demonic influence the young man radiated had been responsible for the last Uchiha's madness and betrayal, and that Sakura shouldn't expose her unborn child to such unwholesome influences.

It took weeks of work for the Hyuuga gardeners to repair the idiot-shaped hole in the gardens.

Neji had somehow prevented himself from observing aloud that neither Orochimaru nor Uchiha Itachi had had any particular exposure to Naruto before they'd gone power-mad and left a swathe of destruction in their wakes. Wedding clothes were expensive to repair, after all.

Happily, Sakura had no inhibitions about making those points and more. After driving the imbecile at least twelve feet straight into the ground, she even managed a nearly-convincing little giggle, with one still-slender hand curved to the mound of her heavily distended belly: "Silly me, it looks like I got a little carried away. It must be all these hormones! Pregnancy is _such_ a trying time for a woman. Speaking of which -- Naruto-chan, would you possibly be so kind as to fetch me some more pickles?"

"Naruto-_chan? NARUTO-CHAN?_" the blonde protested, having completely forgotten how he'd been meaning to try to sneak away from Sakura to prevent her facing any more harassment for his sake.

Sakura flexed her fist significantly and said, "Hormones, Naruto-_chan_. Lots and lots and _lots_ of hormones."

…And then she added another delicate-flower giggle for effect. It mostly served the purpose of making Neji's blood run cold, and upon sober reflection raised his level of respect for Lee a few notches for having survived nine months of that. The likely strength of their coming child was, frankly, terrifying to consider.

Looking down at the faintly smoking moron-chasm in the Hyuuga garden, Naruto had gulped back the rest of what he was meaning to say and brought over an entire plate full of pickles. And Sakura kept him so busy Lee-sitting that he forgot he was going to try to sneak away.

She hadn't necessarily done the young man any favors. She knew he adored children, because in a lot of ways he was still a child who'd never fully grown up; and so she brought the baby whenever she came to visit the academy. Iruka-sensei was always delighted to greet her child, and as Iruka's teaching assistant, Naruto had an excuse to keep the baby happily squealing and bouncing on a knee while their former teacher taught the current class their basics. But Naruto was serving as Iruka's teaching assistant because the council was no longer allowing him to leave the village on missions since Gaara had escaped the Sand's supervision a few months back, and so there was no one else who'd let him work for them. Kakashi would have, of course, but Kakashi's assignments were almost always outside the village; Yamanaka Ino would have let Naruto work in her flower shop, for the sake of her friendship with Sakura, but the thought of Naruto trying to make flower arrangements and sell them was about as appalling as the thought of Hinata-sama trying to take up work as a lumberjack. So the young man faced a choice between Iruka's assistantship and "missions" that were entirely within the village walls, which usually meant menial chores fit only for slow and backwards academy students.

It was, to be blunt, a ridiculous waste of the young man's talents. But Neji had more than enough experience with stupid, petty, political short-sightedness to know that it was futile even to begin the fight.

And then the academy children's parents protested that Iruka was exposing their children to the demon.

Iruka would have kept him anyway; Iruka was stubborn like that. But Naruto kept finding excuses not to come to class, with that stupid silly grin of his -- and he had years of listening to Kakashi's excuses; it would take quite a while for him to run out of bad lies, since he'd been taught by the master himself. So Iruka gave Naruto the students' papers to grade, and paid him more than he could technically afford for the help. But Iruka's teaching salary simply couldn't stretch to cover his apartment, Naruto's apartment, his food, Naruto's food, two separate sets of clothing and necessities and life.

When Iruka was injured taking a B-rank mission during a school holiday because he needed the pay, Naruto drove a fist straight through the wall of the hospital. He proved that he'd been listening to Iruka's howls of outrage and incendiary lectures during their Academy years, because he had the intonation and the fuming outrage down perfectly... aside from when his voice cracked with the tears he was refusing to let himself shed.

Neji heard him because everyone who was within a block of the hospital likely heard him, and he was at the hospital because Hinata was having her first prenatal examinations. They were more cautious with Hyuuga pregnancies than many others; the genetic testing began early, to try to catch any defects of inbreeding that could be corrected within the womb, or to tell whether the child might be too malformed to be carried to term. But when he '_saw'_ the ANBU starting to swarm Iruka's newly-reventilated room from three floors away, Neji sighed and patted Hinata's hand a little awkwardly and said, "Will you excuse me for a few minutes?"

She'd '_seen_' the same thing; she nodded, biting her lower lip hard.

He never was sure how he'd managed to talk them all out of bloodshed. Politics had never been his strong point, to put it mildly. Diplomacy came about as naturally to him as swimming to a concrete duck. But the simple fact of the matter was that he alone of all the shinobi in the room could actually say with confidence that Naruto's seal had not broken and the demon's chakra was not at all in evidence -- no, Naruto's fist had gone through the wall purely from his own frustration and helplessness at the fact that the person he adored most in the world had nearly gotten killed trying to earn enough to feed and house them both since Naruto himself was being placed under virtual house arrest. But there was no expecting them to _understand_ that, so a look at Naruto's chakra signature with the Byakugan served in the place of common sense and compassion.

The seed of the idea planted itself then. By the time he'd chased off the ANBU, managed to extricate himself from Naruto and Iruka without having to reply to the awkward things like gratitude and admiration that they were trying to present to him against his will, and found his way back through the maze of the hospital -- by that time, the seed had already sprouted, and was unfurling leaves in his mind. Hinata noticed that he was quieter than was usual on the walk home -- he really had to hand it to her perception some times; most people didn't know he _could_ be quieter than was usual for him -- and she twined her fingers through his with an odd combination of shyness and boldness.

There was no rational reason for his body to respond with a flush of warmth as though the outdoor temperature had raised by fifteen to twenty degrees, or for his chest to feel tight, or for something to dance in his stomach like butterflies. There was no reason for her understanding and support to make such a difference to him. He was the strong one. She was the weak one. She was the one who needed to be touched and supported and comforted. He didn't. That was how the world worked. So, with that resolved, he held her hand quietly as they walked back to the Hyuuga compound, and told himself it was for her sake.


	3. Chapter 2

By the time Iruka was released from the hospital, Neji had worked out the details. Naruto had served a working apprenticeship under the village's best academy teacher; Hyuuga children could see whether or not his demonic chakra was leaking and could warn officials appropriately; Hyuuga children were often more advanced than classmates without bloodline limits, would benefit from special tutoring from a talented and strong teacher, and no one other than that last mad Uchiha had ever suggested that Naruto wasn't strong. Neji had even managed to convince Hiashi of the value of it, which meant that at that point it had become a fait accompli.

The Council muttered and gasped and were generally horrified at the mere suggestion that the next generation of Hyuuga might be trained by a demon. Neji didn't have to care what the Council thought, since it was a purely Hyuuga arrangement that didn't involve their children in the slightest. Hiashi, who _did_ have to care what the closed-minded old fools thought, expounded on the theory and suggested that it would train them to be particularly alert to any potentially insidious influences and more conscious of the differences between different types of chakra. Neji let Hiashi deal with the village politics of it, and spent his time finding Branch House members who wouldn't die of apoplexy at the suggestion that a demon could tutor their children and take them on 'special training' missions virtually unsupervised.

When Naruto realized that Neji was effectively treating him like a special jounin given the same teaching rank as Kakashi or Asuma or Gai, he was actually stunned to the point of incoherence for a full fifteen minutes. Not silence -- Neji silently doubted that _anything_ would ever stun _Naruto_ into fifteen minutes of silence -- just incoherence, mostly filled with "guh" and "wha" and "buh" and "er" sounds. It was somehow both annoying and endearing. Partially annoying _because_ it was endearing, because Neji expected himself to not be susceptible to such things.

Besides, it was for Hinata's sake. Hinata smiled for Naruto the way she never smiled for him. Neji felt obscurely as though he owed her something because of it, because he could never make her smile that way, and didn't know how to try. And Neji himself was about to be sent on some fairly ludicrously dangerous missions without sufficient preparation or backup, since the Council didn't take kindly to being thwarted, and so the two of them needed to look out for each other in his absence, because they would both need it.

It annoyed Neji to have to explain that to them, before he left. Hinata's waistline was still as trim as it had ever been, but her condition showed in her face -- she was simply and inexplicably radiant, and the concern in her eyes when she touched his shoulder tore at him far more than he should have allowed it to. He took her hand between his and explained it bluntly to them both.

"If Hinata-sama loses the child, or herself, then Hanabi-sama becomes the only Hyuuga heir capable of bearing a child who will not be sealed. Too many people know that. Far too many people know that. The two best protections we have are that Hinata-sama's condition isn't public knowledge yet, and that the Hyuuga are known to be supervising a 'semi-tame demon' who is devoted to the clan heir. So I'm trusting her safety to you, Naruto. And, Hinata-sama, I'm trusting his safety to you as well. We all know the council has been clutching at more and more desperate excuses to try to find a permanent solution to their baseless fears concerning him. As the heir of the Hyuuga house, your word has force -- and you must not hesitate to use that force to protect him, so that he in turn can protect you. His teachers have no authority to protect him. Godaime-sama does, but she cannot see everything -- and the Hyuuga are notorious for seeing everything; we may as well gain some value from the reputation. You can tell them that his seal has not weakened and be listened to; very few others can. Use that, Hinata-sama. Do you both understand me?"

They traded a long, silent look; and then Naruto laced his fingers behind his head with one of his more irrepressible grins, and said, "Yeah, we get it. You're just worried about Hinata-chan and me, that's all. It'll be fine -- Uzumaki Naruto's on the job, after all!"

Hyuuga Neji did not splutter, or blush, or squirm; in the lack of those options, the best he could do was glare. Naruto was completely unfazed by the glare. He ought to have objected, but somehow he couldn't find enough indignation to bother.

The mission itself took three weeks; Neji took another several days to return to Konoha, unable to make his usual speed with a gash in his thigh and cracked ribs. Before even the hospital, though, his first stop was the roof of the Hyuuga house, scanning the grounds for the telltale flare of Naruto's chakra, bright as a bonfire amid rows of candles. He followed the nearly-too-bright blaze through the grounds and found both of them resting in the garden, Hinata's head pillowed against his rolled-up orange jacket, Naruto leaning against a tree with drowsy blue eyes barely slitted open, just enough to keep watch over her.

In his absence, she'd begun to fill out, no longer wearing her old shorts; she wore a softer pair now, rounding just a bit in front. The way that Hinata's belly gently curved up to meet the waistline of that old jacket made him angry, and it took him a long moment to realize why. He'd wanted to be there for her -- he'd wanted to be _able_ to be the one who was there for her -- the day she first left the top button unfastened, the day she discovered that her clothes were growing snug; as she found her body rounding with _his_ child, he'd wanted to be there, not out risking his life as a punishment for having dared to help the demon's host and strengthen his clan at the same time.

He didn't blame Naruto; he couldn't. If Naruto had been the Hokage, he would never have been sent away for so long, for such a senseless reason. If Naruto had been the Hokage, so many things would be different. Neji had never spoken aloud the cold, unalterable truth that Naruto would likely never be allowed to become the Hokage, regardless of Tsunade's wishes or his own; the villagers would revolt in terror, and the other ninja villages would panic at the thought of Konoha being led by a man with the strength of a demon to draw upon. But Naruto didn't know that. He still spoke as though being kept in a near-prison the size of the village walls was just a way to become more familiar with his future constituents…

Sometimes, Neji thought it would be nice to have been born an imbecile. Naruto seemed to enjoy his idiotic optimism far more than Neji enjoyed his intelligence.

When the pair of them realized that Neji had come back wounded, Naruto carried Neji to the hospital himself, largely so that Hinata wouldn't. At first, Neji had tried to protest, but when he realized that Hinata was serious about wanting to support his weight and make herself his crutch during the trip, surrendering to Naruto was easier on his pride. Not much easier, but a little. In order to try to ignore what the medic-nins were doing to his leg, Neji watched his wife instead -- the way the sunlight caught in her hair, the way she rubbed her fingertips together in concern, the way the little pout of her belly rose and fell with each breath. When she realized where his gaze rested, she yelped and tried to hide herself behind a blanket, stammering incoherently about having intended to dress more concealingly for his return; he shook his head, impatient, and pulled the blanket away from her, and held out a hand.

She glanced at Naruto for reassurance, and that stung more than he liked to consider; Naruto made a little shooing gesture toward the bed, and so Hinata stepped closer to Neji's bedside, obedient and still frightened. He cupped a battle-calloused hand against the soft curve of her belly, to feel the warmth of her, the solid reality of her body. After a breathless moment, blushing like a midsummer rose, she folded her hands over his.

The yearning in Naruto's eyes hurt too. Everything hurt too much just then. Neji closed his eyes and let the medic-nins have their way with his unprotesting body.

She told him that evening, around many blushing apologies for how she'd let herself gain, that the medics said that she was carrying twins… it did run in the family, after all, and it often skipped a generation, and so that was why she was showing her condition a bit earlier than might be expected, and both she and Hanabi were likely to--

He cut the rest of it off with a kiss, and drew her down to lie beside him, and was silently glad that Naruto lacked the Hyuuga gift of seeing through walls, because the ache in those brilliant eyes still lingered in his mind.


	4. Chapter 3

As the months passed, Neji spent more time gone on missions than in Konoha; the council was doing their best to punish him as much as they could. But when Iruka was in the mission room, Neji found himself holding C and D-ranked missions inexplicably often -- inexplicable until he realized that none of the low-ranked missions would take him more than a day at most, and that he would be able to return in the evenings to Hinata.

He appreciated the sentiment, but wasn't sure which approach was more infuriating. When he watched his wife brushing her hair for bed in the evenings, dressed in a soft white nightgown that curved sweetly with her growing belly, he thought that he would give Iruka the benefit of the doubt after all. When he found himself chasing a simpering noble's evil-minded escape-artist cat through the woods for the third time in two weeks, he wasn't quite as sure.

Naruto was the one who took Hinata to sign up for birthing classes; a bit sheepishly, scratching behind his ear, he said, "Well, we know I'm going to be in town whenever the kids decide it's time to put in an appearance…"

Neji nodded stiffly, and fled up a tree to try not to be seen fuming, because Hinata would take it personally; Hinata took everything personally, and he lacked the skill or the gentleness to make her believe that his anger was at the council, not at them.

He'd just made up his mind to try to apologize when he saw Hinata sobbing into Naruto's shoulder; the young man had his arms around her gingerly, not quite sure what to do, and being surprisingly quiet for once.

Neji could only hear snatches of the one-sided conversation -- "…not your fault… you know he loves you, really he does, he's just not good at talking about stuff like that… Sakura-chan says everything makes you cry when you're pregnant, it's going to be all right… hey, smile for me, okay? It'll work out…"

Naruto dried her tears, and smiled for her so encouragingly that her smile came out too -- like a wavery tear-damp mirror, but it strengthened when he patted her cheek and flashed her a disturbingly Lee-like thumbs-up.

"See? That's better already! Come on, let's head to the library, I bet they'll have books on this baby stuff. --And you can tell me what the complicated kanji say," he added a bit sheepishly.

She was actually giggling as the demon's host looped an arm through hers and patted her snug, swelling belly, and then made a comically astonished face: "That little brat just hauled off and kicked me! Hmph. See if I ever change _your_ diapers!"

Neji left for the top of the Hokage mountain at a dead sprint, hating himself for the fact that Hinata had never smiled like that for him; but however fast he ran, he couldn't escape the image of her tear-streaked face brightening under Naruto's coaxing, and the sound of delight in her giggles when the sunny young man touched the curve of her belly, growing ripe and round with unborn children that could have been his own if the world had been a little more fair.

He hadn't even noticed the sun setting, too lost in his own thoughts. He certainly hadn't noticed his own hunger, because his stomach had tied itself in knots long earlier, and his throat was still knotted shut with the grief and rage he didn't know how to handle. What he finally did notice was the sound of clumsy feet and panting like an overlarge dog, followed by orange-clad ankles stopping directly in his field of view, and then two smaller, more delicate feet joining them.

Naruto had carried Hinata up the mountain; when Neji lifted his face to look at her, she made a little squeak and ducked her face into Naruto's collar. Rubbing the small of her back, the blonde said awkwardly to them both, "Look, I know you two love each other. You've been looking out for each other practically your whole lives, except for when you got a little confused for a while. This isn't exactly a good time to be getting confused again. So let's get it all unconfused, okay?"

Neji waited, but that seemed to be the end of the speech.

After an awkward silence, Naruto mumbled, "Listen, I know Hyuugas have got this whole don't-talk-much thing at least as bad as Uchihas, I swear it's genetic or something, but don't make me come up with _all_ the conversation here. Some of the things that come out of my mouth are pretty stupid sometimes."

"I'm sorry," Hinata whispered into Naruto's collar.

"Apologies don't count as conversation," Naruto reminded her wryly. "Look at me. How many times you ever heard me put an apology in a conversation? …see?" Over her huddled shoulders, he looked over at Neji for help. "It's not her fault, right?"

"No," Neji said softly, closing his eyes against the sight of his wife in the arms of the man she'd always loved. "It's not her fault she loves you. It's mine, for not being able to be someone she could love."

Hinata turned sharply at that, tear-filled eyes wide. "That's -- that's not-- not how it is-- that's--"

"You've loved him all your life," Neji said simply. "We both knew it, whether or not he did. You've never pretended otherwise. You'd have been happier with him, if you hadn't been the Hyuuga heir and he hadn't been… what he is. --I thought… maybe I could learn… to be someone you loved, but… you still flinch in fear when I surprise you, you still put your hands over your mouth if you've been laughing with him when I come in…" He shrugged a little, helpless, having run himself out of words.

"…but…"

Naruto bent his head closer after that one tiny little word, coaxing as though she were a shy puppy. "But what, Hinata-chan?"

"…but… I love Neji-nii-san too…"

"You might, but you fear me more," Neji said tiredly, staring at his own feet. "Listen. Both of you. He's right, I'm going to be gone more often than not, if the Council has their way. He should take you to the birthing classes. He's been more of the children's father than I have been -- he's the one who talks with you, laughs with you -- he's the one who'll be able to be here for you; all I have to offer you is an approved bloodline…"

It was difficult to say it aloud, more difficult than he'd imagined, but one thing Neji had never lacked was courage -- and, when even that wasn't enough, he had stubbornness to outlast the courage, when it was needed.

"…The law says only that he can't father your children, that your children have to carry Hyuuga blood. I'm good enough for that. But beyond that… a pregnant woman can't conceive another child while her womb is already full."

Naruto's jaw was hanging open. Hinata squeaked, "Neji-nii-san…?"

"You understand what I'm saying," Neji said tightly, turning away. "I'll take the Council's damned vengeful little missions; it'll earn money for the children, in any case. And… while I'm gone… the two of you have my blessing. I'll leave you in peace."

"No you _don't_," Naruto said, grabbing Neji's sleeve tightly enough that he heard stitches pop. "Hinata-chan just said she loves _you_, moron, and you're her husband anyway! No way in hell am I letting her husband walk away from her when she's carrying your kids!"

"_You're_ the one who knows how to make her smile," Neji whispered, and it came out more raw than he'd meant. "I've never been able to learn that, no matter how I wish I could. She'll be happier with you. I love her enough to want that happiness for her, for both of you, even if it means I can't have it myself."

"Neji--"

"I wish I could make Hinata-sama smile," he murmured. "I wish I could earn the right to see her smiling just for me, the way you always have. I just… don't know how. And that's my fault, not yours, not hers. That's entirely my fault."

Naruto let out a very undignified snort, and Neji lifted his head to _glare_ at the insensitive oaf. It was humiliating enough admitting things like that, let alone being mocked for them.

"I don't recall asking your _opinion_, Uzumaki--"

Naruto snorted again. "Well, you should have! 'Cause then I could've told you how often Hinata-chan wishes she knew how to make _you_ smile, since the two of you don't seem inclined to mention that part to each other. Must be that Hyuuga half-mute thing. You're going to have the _quietest_ kids ever, I swear."

Even in the moonlit half-darkness, Hinata was blushing like a sunset, and rubbing her fingertips together so fiercely Neji was surprised she hadn't sprained them. Shaken, he managed to ask, "Are you _serious_?"

She ducked her head further down, and mumbled, "I remember… when you were little… you had such a beautiful smile, and… I wish I could see it again, I wish I could do things right for you, I just… can't, I stumble around and I say all the wrong things when you don't want to hear them but if I don't say anything then that makes it worse and... and I just... I don't know… how to make you smile either..."

Naruto, the stupid insensitive ass, was giggling. Not just giggling -- snickering even, snorting with glee and clutching at his ribs and pointing back and forth between both of them.

"Shut _up,_ imbecile," Neji said, feeling an uncomfortable burning in his face that he suspected was blushing, and wildly grateful that he'd chosen to stand with his back to the moonlight.

"See, Hinata-chan," Naruto gasped, still wheezing with glee, "that translates from cocky-bastard-ese into 'we both know you're right but I'd rather eat glass than give you the satisfaction of admitting it so why don't I insult you instead.' Trust me, I know how that one works. S-... Sasuke and I did it to each other for _years..._"

Even when his voice caught, that irrepressible grin stayed rather firmly in place. "Hey, I know! I can make you a secret bastard-ese decoder ring! It'll be way awesome-- I'll get some sparklies out of the supply cabinet at the academy, we can make it shoot rainbows and flowers and girly shit like that if you want--"

"Hinata-sama won't need a decoder ring, thank you _very_ much," Neji said stiffly.

"Oh yeah? Prove it."

"Excuse me?"

Naruto grabbed each of them by the elbow, hauled them around facing each other, and let go to crack his knuckles and, somehow, his neck. "All right! Uzumaki Naruto-sensei's Pop Quiz no Jutsu! Neji, make her smile. And I grade pass-fail!"

"...What?"

"She won't need a decoder ring? Prove it. Make her smile. Right now."

Hinata was blushing so fiercely it was even visible by the moonlight; Neji was briefly grateful he was standing with his back to the moon, because his face felt rather suspiciously warm, and it was against his principles to be seen blushing. Particularly by Naruto, who would have derived far too much amusement from it.

A moment later, he realized Hinata was speaking, except that it was so hushed and so far under her breath he hadn't even noticed it at first.

"...it's all right, it's my fault anyway, never mind, and besides it's not fair if I don't have a pop quiz, so... so... we should just..."

"No can do!" Naruto said, wagging a finger under her nose. "Iruka-sensei never lets anyone out of their pop quizzes just 'cause they didn't study!"

"But... it's not fair if only Neji-nii-san has to... to..."

"We'll get you your pop quiz later," Naruto said airily. "Besides. Can't give out a pop quiz that the _teacher_ can't even pass, and nobody's seen Neji smile for _years_. That'll be the final exam or something."

"Naruto--"

"Look," the blonde said, rolling his eyes. "This isn't brain surgery. You're married. Learn to make her smile. Starting here and now. 'Cause there's no 'better' time to wait for." He plonked down on Sandaime's stone skull and crossed his arms, clearly waiting for the results of his pop quiz to be handed in.

Neji stared down at the miserable-looking huddle of his wife, who had hunched her shoulders up around her ears and hidden her face in both hands in excruciating embarrassment. Feeling unaccountably helpless, he stared down at his hands, bone-white in the moonlight, and then reached up to carefully coax a hand beneath hers, so that he could touch her cheek and feel whether or not she was crying.

His hands were actually shaking. If he'd let his emotions affect him this badly in any of the fights he'd been in over the past six months, he wouldn't be standing there to wonder at it.

"How do you do this?" Neji breathed, unsure which of them he was addressing, or whether he thought an answer was even possible. "I don't know what to do-- I've never known... how to be gentle enough, how to be strong enough to protect you but still gentle enough not to hurt you -- I don't know how..."

Her bowed head was at the perfect height to rest against his chest; cautiously, he stepped a little closer, put an arm around her waist as stiffly as though he were one of the Sand puppeteer's wooden toys. And then he froze, his mind a complete and utter blank.

Naruto's barely-muffled snort was _not_ a balm to his already-frayed nerves.

"How do _you_ do this?" he demanded. "How do you live like this? You never think, you just dive right in, you say the most insensitive and crass things imaginable, you don't even _pause_ before anything you think comes out your mouth, and somehow you just wade straight through and you make everything work out all right -- how do you live like this? Aren't you terrified? Anyone with half a brain would be terrified -- she's so fragile, she's so easily hurt, and you never think about _anything_ before you just go ahead and say it-- but then if you had half a brain we wouldn't be standing here because you'd have taken her from me and she'd have gone willingly, you know she would; I'm not good enough for her, not kind enough; I'm this ludicrous legendary genius when it comes to murder but when it comes to life... she makes me clumsy; she's the only person in the world who makes me this clumsy. I don't know what to do, I've never known -- what to do, what to say, how to be what I need to be for her -- how do you manage it--? How have you managed to..."

Hinata's breath caught in her throat, and Neji went as stiff as though he'd been stabbed. "Are you crying?" he whispered. "Damn it -- damn it, I don't know what to do, what to say-- Hinata-sama, I'm sorry, I just... I don't know..." He took a deep, shuddering breath, and let it out, feeling tears prickle at the back of his eyes for the first time in fifteen years. "I'm so sorry," he whispered. "I don't mean to hurt you, it just happens..." With a cracked, hoarse sound that might have been a laugh in other circumstances, he asked, "Do you want his decoder ring after all?"

"Okay, you pass," Naruto said, with a lopsided grin.

"_Don't mock me!_" Neji flared, his hands knotting into fists at his sides. "I'm _trying--_"

"I know," Naruto said, grinning bigger. "I said you pass. What don't you get about not-failing?"

"But... she's..." Neji gestured helplessly at the shivering figure still huddled in the curve of one rigid arm.

"She's _laughing_ at you," Naruto said, in a voice half choked with glee. "She's just scared she's going to piss you off when you figure that out."

"...She's laughing at me?" The rush of giddy, overwhelming relief was followed nearly as quickly by injured dignity: "...she's laughing at me?"

"That's what I said last time, _genius,_" Naruto said, standing up and dusting off his pants with a casual swat across the backside, and Neji reflected that only Uzumaki Naruto could make 'genius' sound like an insult.

"Wait! Where are you going? --why is she laughing at me?" Neji heard the sheer panic in his own voice, and hated himself for it, but he would have thrown himself on Naruto's dusty sandals and begged for a painfully-shy-introvert decoder ring if the blonde took one more step away from them without translating.

"Ask _her_ that," Naruto said, gleefully unhelpful.

"H-hinata-sama...?" Not sure where to put his hands, he tried to coax a fingertip under her chin; but she was agonizingly embarrassed that Naruto had just given away her secret, and she buried her face in Neji's shirt.

"...sorry... so sorry... didn't mean... s-so... sorry..."

"_Don't_ _apologize,_" Neji said, frustrated and helpless. "Just tell me. What did I say that... that... made you laugh...?"

Hinata gasped for breath, and rubbed a hand across her face, streaked with laugh-tears, and propped a hand in the hollow of her back where the weight of her child-ripening belly pulled most uncomfortably; still with her head ducked, she nestled her head under Neji's chin, to not have to look him in the face. It took her three or four tries to manage not to squeak with giggles, and her voice had faded to almost a whisper by the time she managed.

"I... I...didn't know... you thought those things too... I mean... every day I ask myself... how can I not hurt you? Because... you're so fragile too, and... N-naruto knows how to joke with you, and... I wish... I wish I could... could be... brave enough to try, strong enough for you... but gentle enough... not to hurt..." She dissolved into giggles again. "And I never guessed that you... that you thought... the same thing... --I'm so pathetic...!"

And now the giggles were slipping over into hysterical tears; in a panic, Neji put his arms around her too tightly, and then let go when she squeaked in discomfort.

_Oh, gods, now what do I do--_

"Hinata-chan, don't cry," Naruto said ruefully, lifting a hand toward her hair; then he remembered where he was, and who was holding her, and put his hand behind his own head and laughed at himself a little.

"But... I've watched... watched you for _years_... I try and try to be... more like you, more like someone strong enough... someone good enough for Neji-nii-san... and I still can't...! I'm _pathetic_--"

"You don't have to be more like me, Hinata-chan," Naruto said, awkwardly, which in some petty obscure way made Neji feel better: _he's not THAT blindly lucky, to always have the right words. _"You just have to be more like you, only like not scared and stuff!"

"That _is_ more like you," Neji said wryly, finding that he'd found a better way to put his arms around Hinata, and that she seemed to need the little rubbing between the shoulderblades that was aimed at loosening some of the tension-knotted tenketsu. "You're the least scared person I've ever known."

"I'm scared of a lot," Naruto said, under his breath. "I'm scared of..."

He stopped there. Neji quirked a brow, and said, "Go on."

"...Never mind."

"It would help Hinata-sama," he said, playing his least fair trump card, "if she heard how her 'fearless' idol truly had fears of his own."

"...that's the trouble with you damn geniuses, you're right too damn often," the blonde muttered, scowling at nothing.

"So...?"

He heaved a huge sigh, and scruffled a hand through that shaggy mop, and for once in his life Uzumaki Naruto was actually working at finding words. "...I'm... I'm... scared of messing this up," he murmured. "I'm scared of doing something that would make you hate me. I'm scared if I screw up teaching your kids, I'll have to go begging from Iruka-sensei, and next time he could get hurt worse. I'm scared they're right, that just being around me could affect her kids, that I shouldn't have let Iruka-sensei let me teach, that... that S-Sasuke was my fault too-- that my demon was influencing him, that he couldn't stand the possibility of losing to a loser like me so that was why he went and--"

"The entire Uchiha clan was quite sufficiently messed up on its own, _long_ before you even met him," Neji said calmly, firmly, because he knew he couldn't deal with two hysterical cases at once. "Itachi never met you. Sasuke was Itachi's fault, not yours. And the only demon influencing him was Orochimaru, who was born human, and look how much good his erstwhile 'humanity' did anyone. Without Sasuke's insane focus on vengeance, without that all-consuming hate, the two of you would have been like Lee and I. We fought like dogs in a kennel, we trained and pushed ourselves to outdo the other, but _never_ to the point of betraying everything we ever loved for the sake of power. That was his choice, and _not your fault._"

"...but... if it's not my fault..." Naruto wavered a little, and then asked with a strained grin, "If it's not my fault, if they're wrong that I'm dangerous to be around, that the demon in me is what drove Sasuke mad, that I shouldn't be around the academy kids 'cause they can't watch my seal like the Hyuuga kids can -- if they're wrong about that, then what the hell point is there in what they're doing to me?"

"There isn't a point," Neji said. "Not beyond the fact that they're short-sighted fools who fear your power and the fact that you would have every reason in the world to have a grudge against them for a lifetime of abuse. --I know something about being abused by short-sighted fools, you see." Hinata flinched in his arms; he stroked her shoulder a little, and added, "So does she, since I was among the short-sighted fools who abused her."

"Neji-nii-san..."

"Don't bother trying to deny it," he murmured. "How you can manage not to hate me is still astonishing." Since this seemed to be a night for blunt, Naruto-style honesty, he added almost lightly, "I hate myself, most of the time."

"Neji-nii-san!"

"And this is old history," Neji murmured, stroking her hair with tentative fingers. "And it's far too late at night; you should be resting, Hinata-sama, for your own sake as well as the children."

She put both hands over her mouth, and mumbled, "I'm sorry..."

"It's not your fault that I ran off to sulk, or that I'm a clumsy fool who needs a translation manual to conduct what would be everyday conversation for anyone else," he replied.

"...translating for you or for me...?"

"Both, I think," he said tiredly. With a faint, shy almost-smile, she nodded against his chest.

"I t-think we need that too..."

"And how is that different than a decoder ring?" Naruto asked mock-grumpily, with a theatrical toss of hands in the air. "Anyway, I figure you two are good now, right? See you tomorrow!" He turned to leave, and discovered two sets of hands fisted in his jacket. Neji's grip was light enough not to tear if the blonde truly wanted an escape, but Hinata's grip was white-knuckled, and trembling.

"Where do you think you're going, Uzumaki?" Neji asked.

Naruto was blinking down in some befuddlement at their hands. "...Huh? Back to the ranch," he said, a little dazedly. "Some of the kids were planning to ambush me around sunrise tomorrow, I can't let a bunch of wet-behind-the-ears prankster-newbies get the upper hand with _me_..."

"...but... my decoder ring..."

Then Hinata glanced up at Neji, afraid of his reaction, but she relaxed immediately when she saw the faint quirk at the corner of his lips.

Meanwhile, Naruto was blinking in perplexity; then he scratched sheepishly behind an ear. "Uh... sorry about that, Hinata-chan! How about we work on that one later?"

"You're the one who said that there's no better time than the present," Neji said, feeling more confident now that he had some kind of even tenuous high ground from which to snipe at the blonde.

The thought of Hinata joking about a decoder ring was clearly within Naruto's mental capacity. The thought of Neji joking about a decoder ring was just as clearly _not_ within that capacity.

"...Neji, you actually want a sparkly-and-rainbows-and-girly-shit thing _tonight?_"

"You promised Hinata-sama a decoder ring if she wished for one," Neji said, trying not to admit even to himself how much he was enjoying having the upper hand for _once_ in the entire confusing evening. "Since you clearly haven't had time to develop one yet, and since you've been doing an excellent job of translating so far -- better than either of us have, certainly..."

Hinata nodded vigorously, then realized that she probably wasn't supposed to agree so quickly and ducked her head again, but she didn't let go of Naruto's jacket.

"There, you see? Hinata-sama agrees. We're both in need of a translator, and you seem to serve the purpose quite well. We would prefer to keep you close enough to perform your function."

The blonde looked even more poleaxed than usual. But the light bulb simply wasn't going on.

"…guh... uh... er... wha'...?" He blinked several times, tipped his head this way and that, and finally managed, "Guh?"

For a Hyuuga, this would already have been well-beyond blunt conversation, as evidenced by the fact that Hinata was blushing ferociously about the entire event. Neji reminded himself he was dealing with an Uzumaki instead, and decided to spell things out in words of as few syllables as he could manage.

"Did you completely miss the part where I explained to you that Hinata-sama loves you, that I'm being sent on missions that the Council quietly hopes will maim or kill me now that I've done my duty of getting her with child, and that you and she are both the best protection and the best solace for each other?"

"...You were _serious?_" Naruto yelped.

"Am I ever _not_ serious?" Neji asked, nearly offended.

"...Gah. That's _right,_" Naruto said, actually looking panicked around the edges. "You're Neji, you wouldn't know a joke if one walked up and bit you on the-- er-- gaaah..."

"She loves you," Neji said, exasperated, and dropping the discourse to the single-syllable level. "You love her. I'm gone too much. Should I spell it all out for you?"

"But... but... but... --gaaaaah!"

"What's your problem?" Neji asked. "The marriage? Naruto, we're first cousins. In anyone else's law books, that would have been illegal rather than mandatory. In any other village, I would have been the one watching your marriage. We all know it. I don't mind stepping aside for you."

"But that's not _right,_" Naruto said, pained. "You love her, she loves you, you're married, you're having kids with your bloodline, that's all good -- what are you going around complicating it for? You shouldn't be talking about stepping aside!"

Neji felt that suspicious heat creeping into his face again, and hoped he was still at a good enough angle to hide his face from the moon. "That... that would be an... interesting solution, and one I admit hadn't occurred to me..."

"What would?" the little blonde asked, clearly lost and frustrated about it.

"Sharing, rather than stepping aside."

"...sharing...?"

At wits' end, Neji said very slowly and clearly, "All three of us sleeping together."

"..._whaaaaaaaaaa---!"_

Hinata was shaking again, one hand shoved tight against her mouth. But she still had the deathgrip on Naruto's orange jacket. This time, Neji was fairly sure she was laughing at Naruto instead. Of course, marriage for love was so much not a part of Hyuuga traditions that it was unsurprising that the two of them were more accustomed to the thought of unusual marital arrangements than an outsider would be... but his reaction was still _quite_ amusing to watch.

One of the curses of a blonde's complexion was that the poor boy looked as though he was about to die of embarrassment. "ButbutbutbutbutGAAAAH--!" Both hands fisted in his hair, Naruto spluttered, "But she -- you -- I mean -- I can't--"

"Why not?"

"Because it doesn't work that way!" Naruto wailed. "I'm the one who keeps standing on the outside, that's how it _works_ -- with Sakura-chan and Lee, with you two, with Iruka-sensei even -- I'm always the one who..." He stopped, and gulped hard, and mumbled on an almost-breaking voice, "I'm just the one who goes home by myself..."

The next thing Naruto knew, he had an armful of Hinata -- a double-armful actually, given her shape -- and she was clinging to him and choking out something vehement into his orange collar, something that probably would have been much more convincing if she'd been anywhere near coherent around the hiccuping sobs.

Neji looked at the two of them, at his pregnant wife sobbing into the arms of one of the best and most decent human beings he'd ever known, one she'd loved for years, and he weighed it for a long moment.

He almost walked away; but in the end, he wasn't as pure as Naruto was. If they gave him the chance to be someone who went home with them, the chance to be someone who didn't always go home alone... unlike Naruto, he was too selfish to walk away.

So Neji stepped forward, and found it surprisingly easy to put his arms around both of them. And somehow it was easier to translate Hinata for Naruto than for himself, perhaps because this time he was confident he understood what she was thinking, because he was thinking the same thing himself.

"You," he said to the baffled and panic-stricken blonde, "signed a contract. You signed a contract to tutor the heirs of the Hyuuga house. Hinata-sama and I need tutoring in the arts of communication. We intend to set your hours in the evenings, since the days are taken up by the younger heirs..." His attempt at control was shaking; but he still managed to keep his voice from cracking completely as he said, "And when you go home, you go to the home where we are. You are ours. Your home is our home. You _aren't_ going home to be alone again, you understand me?"

It was the one and only time Neji had ever seen Naruto struck actually speechless.

It didn't last long.

At least when Hinata-sama cried, she was _quiet_ about it. Naruto burst into sniveling howls of blubbering gratitude-and-hysteria-and-giggles-and-sobs all tangled up together. It was probably, once Neji thought about it, the first time in years that someone had told Naruto that they acknowledged him and loved him as he was, for who he was -- Tsunade probably had, Iruka certainly had, but beyond those two... three times in one life was nowhere near often enough; Neji had had his own father long enough to know that. So, silently, privately, he decided to begin to make up that lack as best he could. He knew he'd have a more than willing co-conspirator in Hinata, of course.


End file.
